Helen (DeLamater) Fisher, Fred’s mother and Barb and Betsy’s grandmother, left a thick family scrapbook which I believe came into our hands when Fred died. It then languished on a shelf in my office for many years. Barb forgot we even had it. My little archiving project for this website was the first time either of us really looked at it. Here is a chance to preserve its contents and hopefully share this extensive history with a wider audience than my office bookshelf.
The DeLamater line traces back to arrival in New Amsterdam (New York) in 1652, just one generation after the Mayflower, with roots in France back to the 13th century. It includes soldiers in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and the album even contains original Civil War letters home from 1860-1864. Helen was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR website) and was dismayed that her two sons, Fred and Tom, did not have any direct offspring. Her branch of the bloodline ended with them. The DAR does not recognize adopted children like Barb and Betsy nor their offspring, a cruelly retrograde policy in my opinion.
Barb had a strained relationship with her Grandmother Helen and I only met her a few times. I will try to explore those relationships in other posts. For this, I will try to honor the spirit of the woman and her forebears that put together this album. Some of the photos were missing from the album, scraped by others before we received it. But there is more than enough remaining to fill several extended posts, I suspect.
I find it intimidating, inspiring and humbling to handle this album, particularly the Civil War letters. These 150+ year old letters are a direct link to the writer, Giles B. Allen. I look forward to trying to decipher them to get a closer connection to the time and author. I hope it’s something of the same feeling that future descendants will have discovering the contents of this website.
There’s very much a jigsaw puzzle aspect to putting together the pieces of this album, trying to achieve a more complete picture. I have a feeling it may take several iterations to make sense of the connections. Bear with me, please.
Helen Fisher was born Helen DeLameter, ostensibly with family roots to Claude LeMaitre. The 1882 book referenced in the text above is available in full here (thanks, Google!). Read the Introduction for a summary of the family’s line in France and fascinating details of Claude’s migration to America (A tease! Someday I may summarize them).
It may be wishful thinking that Helen’s line linked directly with Lafayette De La Mater and Claude Le Maitre. It seems that in 1921 the young Miss Helen M. DeLamater (then of Chicago, IL) was investigating the link. She wrote to Mrs. Bell of Norwalk, Ohio who replied on June 27, 1921 that she has a record of her own family link to Claude Le Maitre through her father. Crucially, I don’t know Helen’s relationship to Mrs. Bell at this point. Mrs. Bell refers Helen to attorney Clayton DeLamater, a lawyer on Omaha, for a copy of the genealogy book.
A month later, Helen got the response that Clayton could not trace Helen’s line of the family. Perhaps we will learn more of this connection or lack thereof.
While Clayton’s response may be inconclusive, I think Helen believed she connected directly with the family detailed in the “Genealogy of Descendents of Claude LeMaitre”. I think that’s why she started the scrapbook with these pages. Her membership in the DAR is working proof of a lineage to Revolutionary times but it could have come through her mother’s side of the family, as we will see. Hopefully, we can make this more clear as we go.
The first two pages of photos are of Helen’s paternal grandparents, William Henry DeLamater and Loana DeLamater (born Collins) (though Helen appears to spell it “Leota”). The missing photo was of them together from about 1907.
Helen’s Grandmother (Loana DeLamater) 
Helen’s Grandfather DeLamater 
Grandmother and her oldest daughter, “Auntie” Maude Schenck
The next page is missing its photo of “the DeLamater family taken July 4, about 1900” which is too bad (there is actually tantalizing ghost image of the photo on the facing page but it’s too dim to reproduce). Fortunately, the caption spells out one side of the family. The photo included Helen’s paternal grandparents, parents, Aunt Maude, three cousins (Ben, Edith and Henry) and Helen.
I put together this DeLamater family tree covering the relatives I could directly connect to Helen. So far, I have not been able to verify connection with the deeper De La Maitre line that goes back to the 1600s and beyond.
Following that is a page of Helen’s father, Claude Eugene DeLamater.
Helen’s father Claude about 1935 
Helen’s father (Claude), mother (Winifred) and Auntie (Nora?) about 1930
[click for whole image]
We learn more about Helen’s father Claude on the next two pages. (Listing in MyHeritage.com, scroll down to “Claude Delamater, 1869 – 1943“)
Claude lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 1800 Beverly Drive, almost certainly in this house built in 1925, a year after he moved to town (it’s now valued at $1,275,000, thank you very much).
On September 6, 1936, Claude was featured in the Charlotte News for building a nearly 6-foot scale model of the RMS Queen Mary (which sailed its maiden voyage earlier that year) in his backyard. We learn that Claude was a former machinist and before that was a jeweler. Also that he “never saw an ocean liner himself, let alone the sea.”
Two months later, on November 6, 1936, the Charlotte Observer picked up the same story and offered more details. He was 65-years old when he did this model, so was born in 1871 (MyHeritage and other records have him born in 1869, so maybe he fibbed a little). He was born and raised in Charlotte, Michigan until he was 13 when his family moved to Tennessee. He attended the University of Tennessee, worked for a while on a ranch in Wyoming, then returned to Michigan to work in the early automobile industry. “While working as an experimenter and inspector for the Buick company, he worked with such automobile personalities as Walter Chrysler, Bill Durant and Charles Nash.” In 1924, after his work driving cars caused “a breakdown”, Claude retired to Charlotte, NC, at the age of 53 (there’s no mention of him being a machinist or jeweler, noted in the other article). Claude built the model in three months out of scrap parts. It seems he was promoting his work in hopes of selling his models, getting better tools and opening a novelty shop.
If you want an example of mid-20th century casually overt racism, the last paragraph of the article above does the trick. I wonder if Claude ever finished that Robert E. Lee river boat. I’m hoping not.
Seven years later, in 1943 at the age of 73, Claude passed away. He is buried in Charlotte at Elmwood Cemetery. His headstone gives his birthday as October 7, 1869 and death on July 27, 1943.
The grave site of Claude Eugene DeLamater. Cemetery: Elmwood Cemetery, Location: Fourth Ward Charlotte 1, Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States. Birth: 7 Oct 1869, Death: 27 Jul 1943.
Oddly, neither the newspaper nor Helen’s scrapbook identifies Claude’s wife, Winifred. The obituary does specify Claude’s son (William Henry) of Charlotte and daughter, Mrs. R. R. Fisher of Detroit (that’s our Helen).
Helen’s brother, William, gets the next page, though only one photo remains, from about 1935 in Charlotte, NC. At the moment I’ve found little other than that he died in 1973 in Charlotte.
The next two pages explore more of the family tree, focusing on Helen’s mother’s line.
Most immediately helpful is this written tree of Helen’s mother’s family which took me a few minutes to decipher. At the bottom is Helen and her husband, Robert R. Fisher and their two sons, Frederic (Barb and Betsy’s dad) and Thomas. The next grouping up, Helen is there as the daughter of Winifred Allen and Claude DeLamater. Winifred, in turn is one of four children of Mary Ermina Kellogg and Giles B. Allen (we’ll learn more about Giles in subsequent pages). You can step up (or back in time) through Jane Ward, Owen Ward and finally Joshua Ward and Mary Forman. There you have seven generations of the Ward-Pinckney-Kellogg-Allen-DeLamater-Fisher line. Ready to forge onward?
Here is the Ward Family Chart. In the middle is Joshua Ward who married Mary Forman (the top line in the previous chart). They had six children, including Owen, who in turn had three children including Jane…which eventually leads on down to Helen and Fred. Going up the tree, Joshua Ward was one of four children of Daniel Ward and Mary Owens. If I’m reading it right, Daniel Ward was one of seven children of Daniel Ward and Hannah —.
This document provides more detail and context.
The Internet helps fill in some details. Joshua Ward was born 1758 in Pleasant Valley, NY. He was son of Daniel Ward, Jr., born 1727, and grandson of Daniel Ward, Sr., born 1707 in Northampton, England. Daniel, Jr. and Joshua are both buried in Pleasant Valley, as is Mary Forman. The founder of Syracuse was Judge Joshua Forman, son of Hannah Ward and Joseph Forman. Hannah was a sister of Joshua Ward; both were children of Daniel Ward, 1727-1804, and Mary Owen of Pleasant Valley. These details are partly via Vivian Allen who was chasing these family connections in 2007 on Genealogy.com.
Here’s a bit more on Daniel Ward Jr., father of Joshua: “Daniel Ward b1727 and Mary Owen Lived in Pleasant Valley, NY. They had 8 children
Anthony, Jonathan, Hannah (married Joseph Forman), Joshua (married Mary Forman), Martha, Bethiah (married Zephania Platt), Sarah (married John Beadle), Owen (married Sarah Oakley).”
The description above notes that Owen Ward (son of Joshua and Mary) was married to Harriett Pinckney (of the South Carolina Pinckneys it says, though this seems a stretch — more like a Long Island branch of the family). They lived in the Pleasant Valley, NY family home and had three children (Pamela, Lavinia and Jane) until “financial failure came” and Owen moved the family to Lodi Plains, Washetaw County, Michigan. Harriett died before they left New York. Evidently, Owen later married Paulina Tallman and had at least one son, Thomas O. Ward who married Elizabeth Noel Arnold. They, in turn, had a daughter, Maude Ward Rich (she married Edson Rich) who was DAR member 45869.
The next double page further traces the Ward – Kellogg – Pinckney line and introduces the Ackers, way back when.
It took me a while to sort these pages out, but let’s start here. In the middle of the page below you see Harriet Pinckney who married Owen Ward. They had daughters (Pamela, Lavinia and Jane…from previous page). Jane Ward married Hiram Kellogg in Michigan where Owen had moved the family. Jane and Hiram Kellogg had (an unspecified number of) children, among them Mary Ermina Kellogg who married Dr. Giles B. Allen.
Here we get some detail about Dr. Giles B. Allen, Helen’s grandfather, who figures prominently in subsequent pages. He was born in 1843 in Freedom Township, Washentaw County, Michigan. He was educated at Lodi Academy (in Lodi, Michigan, “long ago closed“) and Ann Arbor University (presumably the University of Michigan which moved to Ann Arbor in 1841; he graduated in 1867). Giles was in the Civil War with Company F of the 6th Michigan. He served for three years and was promoted to Sergeant Major. He returned to Charlotte, Michigan to practice medicine for 42 years where he died in 1911.
The same Harriet Pinckney who married Owen Ward (to become Harriet Ward) was the daughter of Dr. John Pinckney (born 1777 in Aurelius, NY [where, coincidentally, Deb Pinckney is currently the Town Clerk], died 1832 in Pontiac, Michigan) and Deborah Acker (sometimes Ecker). Deborah Acker’s great-grandfather was Wolfert Acker (1667-1753) who owned/built Wolfert’s Roost in Tarrytown, NY, around 1690 which became Washington Irving’s home, Sunnyside (more below).
The Acker family has a long history in the lower Hudson Valley, New York. Wolfort was “Privy Counselor to Peter Stuyvesant, last Dutch Governor of New Netherlands. Family beliefs are that he never liked Stuyvesant and was more than glad to stay in America when the Dutch finally gave way to the English.” Wolfort’s father (according to this paper but more likely his brother), Jan Acker, was an “old Dutch burgher [who] settled in Tarrytown, NY, and was for many years deacon in Dutch church which is still there and is a famous landmark.” He married Maretje Sybouts and had two sons, Wolfort and Cornelius, as I interpret this page.
There’s a clearer and far more detailed description of the Acker family’s roots in this remarkable book, “Souvenir of the Revolutionary Soldiers’ Monument Dedication, at Tarrytown, NY” (thanks again, Google!). Start on page 101 for the Ackers but the family figures in other sections as well. There are lots of interesting details but more than I can summarize here at the moment.
I like the last line, “The rest you know.” Well, no, but we’re figuring it out.
There’s a second, presumably older version of this page with pretty much the same information.
Here is more about the Ward family. Some of the details sound impressive but I’m having a hard time finding corroborating evidence (see the typed “Outline of Pinckney – Ward – Kellogg – Allen Genealogy” back a couple of pages, plus there’s more on the Ward line in subsequent pages). Here’s what I think this page says.
Your great-grand father [so maybe this was written to Mary Ermina Kellogg?], Joshua Ward was a Lieutenant on General Sullivan’s staff in the Revolution and was a Colonel in 1812.
His grandfather’s grant of land was made by the King of Eng[land] and was very large.
The family owned a yacht with was stationed off of Poughkeepsie when not in use and frequent [???] were made to N.Y. and Phila. in it.
Arthur Babandan [?] had a son who was Farraguts‘ private secretary. Arthur and John his father were very wealthy and owned a mansion in Washington Square New York City which passed out of the family after all had died of that branch.
Jonathan Ward (2nd) studied under Benjamin Rush, a Declaration signer.
Circling back to Wolfort’s Roost and Sunnyside, the album includes a color magazine picture of Sunnyside which identifies it as the “quaint homestead of Washington Irving.” The caption goes on to say, “Irving himself redesigned this house in a mingling of Dutch, Oriental and Tudor styles.” This evidently prompted an indignant letter to the Editor of the Sun from “E.B.E. in Brooklyn” which insists that his (or her) ancestor Wolfert Acker actually built the house in 1690 with “bricks that he imported from Holland.” I love the detail that, “He placed over the door his favorite motto, ‘Lust in Rust’ (Pleasure in Quiet).” It’s almost as good a motto as Disce Pati (maybe better).
Sunnyside is now a popular Washington Irving museum. It was bought from the Irving family in 1945 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who restored it a la Colonial Williamsburg, another one of his projects.
Don’t be confused, as I was for a bit, by Wolforts Roost Country Club (which has its own history) in Albany, NY, so named because the property resembled the original Roost in Tarrytown.
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